Quotes from Jeffrey Pfeffer

Asian professionals are frequently held back from senior positions by the perception that they don't have "executive presence," a factor that similarly operates against other minority groups in the workplace, including women.39 And what constitutes executive presence? Certainly not modesty:

narcissistic CEOs led firms to bounce back more successfully during the post-crisis recovery.42

although most people believe they can reliably discern when they are being lied to, the evidence suggests that they can't.

80 percent of founders are forced out of their companies by their venture capital investors

I have never heard anyone tell me that this would happen to them.

were also among the least successful, and he provided advice about how to be generous without being a patsy.

givers were not only among the most successful individuals

Individuals who wear fake (counterfeit) branded sunglasses cheat more often across a number of different tasks.

if little changes in the informational environment that people confront.

the leadership industry also has its share of quacks and sham artists who sell promises and stories, some true, some not, but all of them inspirational and comfortable, with not much follow-up to see what really does work and what doesn't.

By calling BS on so much of what goes on, this book gives people a closer, more scientific look at many dimensions of leadership behavior. Most important, it encourages everyone to finally stop accepting sugar-laced but toxic potions as cures.

Rather, companies improve their quality by defining what the idea means in terms of specific operational measures, then routinely and frequently assessing those aspects of performance, sharing the outcomes with everyone (often in graphical form), and holding people accountable for improving the measures that are under their control. When

airline executives who have created an experience so unpleasant that their best customers flee for private options and others avoid flying if they can;

John Freeman and Michael Hannan asked why the size of the administrative component—administrative overhead—seems to rise inexorably in organizations.

when times are good, the number of administrators (and probably everybody else) expands

most mergers—some estimates are 70 percent or more—fail to deliver their intended benefits and destroy economic value in the process. A recent analysis of 93 studies covering more than 200,000 mergers published in peer-reviewed journals showed that, on average, the negative effects of a merger on shareholder value become evident less than a month after a merger is announced and persist thereafter.2

when times are bad, administrators, closer to the locus of decision-making and with more power, protect their jobs disproportionately

weight gain was dependent on the weight gains of others with whom that person was socially tied.

the percentage of people in administration inexorably increases.

Siebel's business development executive admitted that all of the company's acquisitions have failed and noted that an internal study indicated that "cultural conflicts" were the cause in every case.5

qualities we actually select for and reward in most workplaces are precisely the ones that are unlikely to produce leaders who are good for employees or, for that matter, for long-term organizational performance.

to change the world of work and leadership, we need to get beyond the half truths and self-serving stories that are so prominent today.

gap between average employee and CEO pay is largest in the financial industry and smallest in technology.

are frequently based on hope or fear, what others seem to be doing, what senior leaders have done and believe has worked in the past, and their dearly held ideologies—in short, on lots of things other than the facts.